Beverly remembers Updike as a low-key, observant and generous celebrity

Thursday

Jan 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMJan 29, 2009 at 8:01 AM

The presence of a “literary giant” in the library often made the assistant library director nervous. His questions would typically run the gamut, covering topics ranging from old cars and baseball to scientific inquiries. Updike’s “gentle, calm and unassuming” persona often calmed Langstaff in the end.

Bobby Gates

Self described teenage punk rocker Liz Coffey had a hairdo nobody could miss — including Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Updike.

Sometimes it was at the library and other times it was at the then-Christy’s store on West Street in Beverly Farms. But the purple Mohawk on the 18-year-old sure always grabbed some attention. So much attention Updike eventually incorporated Coffey’s hairstyle into a back-page essay for the New Yorker in 1992.

It was such modest, yet memorable, connections that illustrate the world-renowned author’s ties to Beverly, his hometown for the last 27 years of his life.

Updike didn’t flaunt his celebrity.

Rather he passed through town, observing, donating and leaving signed copies of his books at the Bookshop at Beverly Farms — a literary god who actually did answer his letters.

The Pennsylvania native graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1954 and soon afterward moved to Ipswich. In 1982 he moved to Beverly Farms, where lived in a home off Hale Street until his death on Tuesday from lung cancer at age 76.

In November he returned from a trip to the West Coast and his health deteriorated quickly. He died at the Hospice of the North Shore in Danvers.

Updike was showered with nearly all of the literary honors that could be bestowed on an author, including the Pulitzer Prize, American Book Award and National Book Critics Circle fiction award for “Rabbit Is Rich” and another Pulitzer Prize for “Rabbit at Rest.”

When Coffey heard about Updike’s death it came via a communication tool Updike had not heard of when he began writing more than 50 years ago but may have eventually been incorporated into one of his novels — the social networking Web site Facebook.

A childhood friend from Beverly High School posted a message on Coffey’s Facebook page saying, “Didn’t he write about you?”

And indeed he did.

But after Coffey was mentioned — by describing her hair as a cerise Mohawk but not naming her — in an essay titled “Hostile haircuts,” Coffey said not much changed when she would see him at either the store or the library, where she worked as a page. She continued to dress with distinctive jewelry and glasses and wear “crazy homemade clothes.”

“I don’t think our relationship changed,” said Coffey, who now works as an archivist at the Harvard Film Archive “We are both shy, I think.”

She did keep a copy of the essay behind the counter at Christy’s and when he came in next she had him autograph it.

Down the street from his home at the Bookshop at Beverly Farms, Updike was a regular patron, said co-owner Pam Price.

The bookshop’s orders would often catch the attention of his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, Price said. While the shop would often order two or three copies of most titles it would often order 100 copies of an Updike novel.

“The publisher always got a kick out of that,” she said.

Updike’s presence in the store was never a big deal. He would never hold official book signing events. Instead, “He would quietly sign them in the back room and leave it for customers,” Price said.

One of Price’s last memories of Updike in the store was when he stopped by with a box full of autographed copies of “Widows of Eastwick,” his most recent novel.

“He had some extra copies and carried them in,” Price said.

Updike also visited the Beverly Public Library at least once a month.

Assistant Director Langstaff recalls calling him in 1996, asking if he would take part in a fundraiser to collect money to furnish the recently completed library addition. He packed the Briscoe Middle School auditorium.

“People came from far and wide to hear him,” Langstaff recalled. “I had never seen anything like it for an author.”

Langstaff said Updike was “very generous” in supporting the library and had donated signed books for fundraising efforts for the Farms branch renovation and the purchase of a new bookmobile.

“He was a big supporter of the library in a quiet way,” she said.

The presence of a “literary giant” in the library often made Langstaff nervous, she said. His questions would typically run the gamut, covering topics ranging from old cars and baseball to scientific inquiries. Updike’s “gentle, calm and unassuming” persona often calmed Langstaff in the end.

Updike’s final book, a collection of short stories titled “My Father's Tears and Other Stories,” is scheduled to go on sale in June.

Beverly Citizen

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